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So, we just had a ptg league...


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Your play group is broken, not the rules. Path to Glory is a narrative campaign as written- you and your opponent combine to write the story of your battle. If you're not on the same page of course you write a terrible story together!

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59 minutes ago, rokapoke said:

Your play group is broken, not the rules.

The rules specifically state that summoning is free and unrestricted by points/follower counts, and games that use it will likely reflect Sadysaneto's experience. It was terribly thought out and poorly implemented. The rules are faulty here, free summoning is probably the least balanced aspect you could introduce to PtG. It takes away from a commited sense of gradual progression if any units can be summoned with no drawbacks.

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37 minutes ago, Freejack02 said:

The rules specifically state that summoning is free and unrestricted by points/follower counts, and games that use it will likely reflect Sadysaneto's experience. It was terribly thought out and poorly implemented. The rules are faulty here, free summoning is probably the least balanced aspect you could introduce to PtG. It takes away from a commited sense of gradual progression if any units can be summoned with no drawbacks.

Although I agree the rules to summoning  contain loopholes you can see from space... simply blaming the rules frees everybody from playing responsibilities. If you summon 6 mournghast and genuinely think that's okay to do in a narrative set-up? I hope I never play such a person. It's a hobby for gods sake meant to be fun. 

If you feel, especially at club level, that it's more important to win than to have fun... then that morality is to blame. Not the rules  

At least that's my view

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The house rule I will implement in mine is "summoning scrolls". Summoners begin the campaign with one scroll each - that gives them one summoning attempt per battle. They can choose to increase the number of scrolls they have by one instead of rolling on the champion/follower chart.

I am choosing this house rule because it still allows summoning to be used (which is a fun thematic mechanic), but puts a hard limit on it so everyone knows how far they can go.

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Ive toyed around with making summoning only work on slain units so its kind of like a healing effect (the summoner is using all their power to maintain their army, multiple summoners can replenish losses quicker etc). Ive not had the opportunity to put this into practice, has anyone else tried anything like this?

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23 minutes ago, Captain Marius said:

Ive toyed around with making summoning only work on slain units so its kind of like a healing effect (the summoner is using all their power to maintain their army, multiple summoners can replenish losses quicker etc). Ive not had the opportunity to put this into practice, has anyone else tried anything like this?

Sounds great! For me, some sort of summoning (over the "deep-strike" of Matched Play) is crucial for Narrative Play as it's so much fun and thematic. At the same time I think it needs some sort of hard limit. It's not because summoning gives free stuff that it's problematic, skeleton banners and Crypt Court Infernals give you free models too, it's because there is no limit in place.

It's fine for people to say "6 Morghasts is unsportsmanlike", but what about 4 or 2? Where do we draw the line? Chances are different people draw the line at different places and if you are a player who considers your opponent's enjoyment of the game you'll end up double guessing every time you summon, "was this cool, or did I just cross the line?" - that's why I stated "If you have to self-regulate it can't be played as a game" - because you can have something that can auto-win you the game if you abuse it and then you have various shades of grey through to not using it. How can that be used tactically?

As soon as you put a limit on it not only does your opponent know what to expect, you can use it to it's full potential and go all out to win the game.

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yeah, sorry, but the narrative stuff doesnt cut it.

skirmish is also narrative and you have rules to summon (can´t do it)

Yeah, "that guy" is always a problem, but they exist and its not like we have 100 of players to choose from, to ice that guy.

In the end, ill blame the rules.

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Gaming is covered by 2 rulesets: the actual rules and a social contract. 

We all have printed copies of the rules.   The social contract is going to be unwritten and it's up to a group to self govern it.  The guy who summons 6 Morghast in a Narrative setting just to win a game?  He knows exactly how he's violating the social contract.  And often, he'll hide behind a defense of "the rules let me do it."  

And he's right,  at least about that part.  But he has also forgotten that he is part of a society consisting of however many people are in the campaign.  And it's up to a society to set a limit as to what is and isn't acceptable.  And it sounds as if the society here failed to have that conversation.

To give an extreme example - I don't knkw where you are from, but I am an American (admittedly, a statement that becomes harder to admit on the international scale with each passing day, but I digress).  As an American, I know that I have the freedom to speak my mind without fear of persecution from the government (or least, I'm supposed to).  That means I can wall up to someone I disagree with on the street and call them a piece of ******, right?  Surely, it's within my rights,  which means there no consequences,  right?

Wrong.

Just because I technically CAN do it doesn't mean society will let me.  If I do it at work to a client,  I'll likely be dismissed.  And rightfully so.  My employer has the right to choose who they associate with.  Likewise,  if I do it to a friend, I'm probably not getting invited to the next get together.  Or a girlfriend or wife? That's couch city for the night, bro.

Just because I CAN do something doesn't mean I should. 

Back to Path to Glory.  Anyone who deliberately sabotages another player's fun by abusing a rule for an advantage because "it's legal " clearly has no regard for the social contract and has failed the group.  Hiding poor behavior behind a cloak of "the rules is a surefire sign that someone is too immature to be a part of a group.

And anyone who watched it happen and ignored it is just as guilty.  A social contract doesn't hold up if someone is not willing to enforce it.

 

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Exactly. I actually asked Ben Johnson on the twitch stream if there would be anything to limit summoning and his answer was no but you have to remember it's a narrative campaign why would you play with people who would abuse it.

We as gamers need to understand that there are some people who will abuse anything and everything simply because they can, with no regard for their other players or the group or anything other than this gives me a better chance to win. It is my opinion that the best approach is to either not invite those people to play things like this or, if there is no way to do that than flat-out refuse to play them if they ask for a game and, if asked well why don't you want to play against me, then flat-out state because you have shown that you have no regard for the social contract and I really don't want to play a game where you are going to abuse summoning (or whatever they abuse) just because nothing prevents you from doing it.

I feel they will either get the hint or be forced to stop playing, and, while shunning someone may be a drastic approach there is literally no other way short of house ruling or in some cases officially changing things such as summoning in matched play (which, more often than not, will nerf it into the ground just on the off chance someone will be "that guy") to prevent these people from doing it. Drastic times call for drastic measures.

As an example I am considering doing a PtG campaign at my GW store when Konor has died down.  I cannot make it open sign up for anyone to play in, for precisely this reason; I know for a fact there are people who would join and then be "that guy" and abuse summoning just because there's no rule saying they can't.  On the flip side are people like myself as a Death (FEC) player who would use it occasionally, but not abuse it even though I could summon something every turn.  Will I use summoning?  Sure I will, but it won't be every single turn, because that's not fun for my opponent.  Maybe once or twice during a game if it fits (say my ghoul king is surrounded by himself, sure I'll summon some ghouls to come to their king's aid, that's also fluffy) but not just chain summon things.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk
 

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AoS invites people to house rule a lot of stuff in their small clubs, especially things like Narrative, Skirmish, and Path of Glory. Clearly defined rules for summoning obviously make it better for league play, but then people who wanted to play a narrative battle where a summoner is overflowing with chaos energy and chucking huge mobs of daemons into the field and it's everyone else's mission to cut through them and kill him... well that would also need to be house ruled. Which scenario is more important here?

Either way, the onus is firmly on the players to define what they feel is acceptable, and I don't think it's an issue that GW won't authoritatively state anything. If you want it to be more competitive, you can slot in the summoning rules from Matched Play. I think AoS needs to be more frequently thought of as a set of flexible tools, rather than a definitive set of commandments. 

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Well, considering morghasts are deaths ultra elite warriors, zero i say is the limit. 240 points, is what a unit of dracoth knights? you're adding like 12% to your army if its a 2k game, 24% if its 1k etc. its just... no, why be like that? why be that guy

 

so any summoning of something elite like that unless the warbands are massively progressed id class as unsportsmanlike unless that's the narrative being built. 

unit of zombies or skeletons? meh what ever but spamming it is just being unfun. 

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this is why the generals handbook was introduced and destroyed summoning as some people cant stop themselves being that guy and ruining it for everyone. is it lack of brain capacity or something? 

just because you can, doesnt mean you need to squat down over someones army and relieve your bowels over it. 

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6 minutes ago, Arkiham said:

 

just because you can, doesnt mean you need to squat down over someones army and relieve your bowels over it. 

Hey buddy... we're just talking about summoning. Now you're telling me I can't relieve myself over someone's army?

Screenshot_20170730-090356.jpg.4b9ec166c96ab52d00ea2d318b0aaaca.jpg

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56 minutes ago, Arkiham said:

Well, considering morghasts are deaths ultra elite warriors, zero i say is the limit. 240 points, is what a unit of dracoth knights? you're adding like 12% to your army if its a 2k game, 24% if its 1k etc. its just... no, why be like that? why be that guy

 

so any summoning of something elite like that unless the warbands are massively progressed id class as unsportsmanlike unless that's the narrative being built. 

unit of zombies or skeletons? meh what ever but spamming it is just being unfun. 

I would say a valid compromise is you can only summon things on your PtG tables (I'm not sure if Morghasts are on the table though, so YMMV?)

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A narrative solution I like for summoning is that a Wizard (or whoever) can only have one unit summoned at a time.  Another I've seen floating around that I like is that when a Wizard is slain, all the stuff they summoned disappears as well.

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1 hour ago, wayniac said:

I would say a valid compromise is you can only summon things on your PtG tables (I'm not sure if Morghasts are on the table though, so YMMV?)

I was thinking similarly, but restricting to units that are already in your warband. Just that one extra bit of restriction, but I think it seems very story-driven. 

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57 minutes ago, Nacnudllah said:

A narrative solution I like for summoning is that a Wizard (or whoever) can only have one unit summoned at a time.  Another I've seen floating around that I like is that when a Wizard is slain, all the stuff they summoned disappears as well.

Holly $#@#! I think you just nailed it!

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On 7/30/2017 at 6:39 AM, wayniac said:

We as gamers need to understand that there are some people who will abuse anything and everything simply because they can, with no regard for their other players or the group or anything other than this gives me a better chance to win.

Human nature, you mean? Ultimately, every sane act a human performs is self-serving, even kind, charitable acts. It's not a surprise that ppl try to win. 

The surprising elements here,  the part we should focus on when trying to have a good time in Path, is that some people are not aware that Path is Narrative, not Matched. 

A Matched mentality is, um, "mis-applied" in Path,  and that's the conversation we should have with supposedly abusive players (many of whom would genuinely not see themselves as abusive and may well be hurt by those acusing them of dumping on the game) . It's not that they should be criticized for going for the win to the best of their ability,  it's that they should be made aware that this is not the place for that approach any more than playing loosie-goosie narrative-ish is appropriate in a Matched tournament. 

All things in their place. 

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On 7/30/2017 at 10:52 AM, Bostian said:

For events that I can act as GM, if a player runs away with summoning lots of units then I provide the opponent with reinforcements to bring on or some other special ability.

 

When they go crazy with mortal wound spells,  do you also remove models to keep it balanced? 

Not rhetorical. 

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